


Always at Each Other’s Side

by bluehawthorn



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: An Unexpected Journey, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Brotherly Love, Brothers, Consensual Sex, Do Not Separate The Heirs Of Durin, Durin Family Angst, Durin Feels, Durincest, Dwarves, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Forest Sex, Fíli POV, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Oral Sex, Pre-Quest, Protective Fíli, Slash, Worried Fíli, fili - Freeform, kili - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 08:25:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3522311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluehawthorn/pseuds/bluehawthorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fili and Kili are traveling alone to the Shire, where they will meet their uncle and the rest of the company before leaving for the Lonely Mountain. After being attacked by bandits and realizing how perilous the quest may truly be, they turn to each other for comfort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always at Each Other’s Side

They are waylaid in the night, long after their fire has burned down to coals and they have both slipped into an exhausted slumber. 

Fili senses them first, and bolts out of his bedroll, where he and Kili were huddled together against a rockbank for warmth. Kili awakens a few seconds later, heaving up, tangled in his blankets and scrambling for weapons.

But it is too late.

There are six of them. They are only men, but they have the advantage of numbers, surprise, and weapons already in hand. Although it is only moments before Fili has daggers in his and Kili is right behind.

The first of them collides with Fili and he knows right away that these are men driven by desperation. He can almost feel the presence of long poverty carrying them forward like a landslide. 

He knew they were near a settlement of men, but had thought it a peaceable one. Times grow harder everywhere, it seems.

The breath is knocked out of him, but he gathers his feet back under him and begins to fight, blades quick in his hands. One man is down almost instantly, but two more take his place, and it is quarters so close he can smell the unwashed stench of them.

A tall man, much taller than Fili, keeps throwing himself at him, grabbing at him, knocking him off balance and making him less effective with his daggers. It is more like wrestling than any of the sword, knife, axe and fist work he is used to. He is grateful for the rock at their back, so that the second man cannot get behind to lay a killing blow.

He can feel Kili struggling fiercely against the rest of the men next to him in the dark. Having his brother at his side always gives Fili confidence in a fight. 

It reassures him and for a moment he thinks that this will only take a few minutes, that soon they will be laughing it off as they do all serious and dangerous things, but then he hears Kili crying out in pain and sees him crumple to one knee. In the moment of distraction it costs him to look towards his brother, the tide turns and he is up against the rock with a knife to his throat. 

He glances down towards Kili again as best he can, trying to gauge his injury. The point of the knife is biting into his skin and he can feel a trail of blood dripping hot down his neck as he strains. He can only see that Kili is still crouched, his sides heaving. He thinks that three of the men are also down, two dead and one he can hear groaning on the ground that must be injured. One of the others is bent over the dead men, weeping. 

Fili knows that he is probably the most dangerous of the three that remain.

The other two are focused mostly on him, although their eyes flicker to Kili and they are restless and ungrounded. They are not warriors or even criminals really, only men with empty bellies. Fili wonders if he can take them both and reach the third before any of them get to Kili.

The one weeping begins to keen. "My brothers! You killed my brothers!" 

Fili's heart constricts around the sound. He is young and not yet hardened against senseless death. He would take these ones back if he could. He knows the value of a brother’s life. But he cannot. He can only try to save himself and his own brother. 

He holds still, watching how the situation unfolds and waiting for an opening. He can tell that Kili is safe for now, his breath laboured but still coming in a relatively even rhythm.

The brother of the two dead men is coming toward them, his gait crooked with grief, and he is telling the others that they must kill the dwarves quickly, that they must rob them and leave their bodies behind. Tears leave pale marks through the dirt on his face and his eyes are rimmed with red. He wants blood.

The other two hesitate and it is just enough. Fili feels Kili's body tense and knows that he is readying himself to fight again. Fili lets energy rise up through his body. Kili's hand strikes out and his blade slices across the ankles of the man whose knife is at Fili's throat. Fili pushes the man away and throws himself forward. 

A few minutes of grappling and all three of the men are fallen, Kili having killed the one whose legs he mutilated and Fili quickly dispatching another with a dagger in the chest before the brother looks him in the eye, rage flickering into defeat and perhaps even relief as he surrenders to his death almost easily. He topples and spends his life into the ground.

Kili is standing and staggers, holding his side, to where the last man is gravely injured but not dead. He gives him a clean death and then looks up at his brother.

Fili is surveying the men's bodies on the ground. He shakes his head and in a heavy voice says, "Such a shame. I take no pleasure in killing hungry men or another man's brother." Then, looking at Kili and moving to his side, "But I am happy that my own is spared. How badly are you injured?"

"One of them had something metal ridged across his knuckles. It was sharp. He got me with it in the ribs." he says, grimacing with pain.

"Are they broken?" asks Fili. 

"I can’t....can you check them for me?" replies Kili, strain in his voice.

When others are around, Kili is more stoic when hurt, but when it is just the two of them, he allows Fili to play the protective older brother and himself to be tended to and cared for. Wincing, Kili shrugs off his coat and lets his brother lift his tunic. An area the size of a hand span is already turning a nasty purple, and the skin is split in several places and bleeding quite a bit. He feels along the lengths of Kili’s ribs but can't find anything broken. "I think they are just bruised and you are cut up pretty good, but not too deep. We should bind them though.” 

Fili offers his shoulder to support his brother’s weight to a nearby log, where he sits him down. He picks some yarrow leaves from where he noticed them nearby before they set up camp, and makes a spit poultice to stop the bleeding. Once he has, he wipes it away and, taking a healing salve from his bag, smoothes it over the ridges of Kili's ribs. 

He finds his fingers lingering, wanting the reassurance of Kili still solid and alive and breathing beneath his hands. He finds himself thinking of when Kili fell, before he knew the extent of his injuries and whether he would live or die. The memory of the fear that gripped him in that moment rises fresh in his chest. He thinks of the man weeping over his dead brothers. 

He shakes these thoughts from his mind the best he can and swallows the emotion threatening to overtake him. He withdraws his fingers from his brother's skin, and finding the bandages in his pack wraps them tightly around Kili’s ribs. 

"The cuts will mostly heal over by morning with Oin’s ointment on them, but you'll be sore. Do you think you can sleep?" Fili starts gathering up their belongings to move them away, further into the forest and away from the bodies.

"I hope so," says Kili, following behind him. "It’s a bit better with the binding, but still hurts to breathe unless I put pressure too." Both his own hands are pressed to his side and his face is pale with discomfort.

"Oh Kee. When we lie down I will see if I can hold it for you so that you can rest."

They walk a ways, as far as Fili thinks Kili can handle. He wants them to be far enough away that the memory of the fight feels more distant and even more importantly, further away from the town those men likely came from. Eventually they find a small clearing in between the trees and Fili thinks it is safe enough for now.

He lays their bedrolls down side by side and helps Kili lie down. He then takes off his coat, placing it right next to them, weapons at the ready, and climbs in as well. He lies along the uninjured side of his brother, his head propped up on one arm and the other stretched across Kili’s torso to put gentle pressure on his ribs.

"Does that help Kee?" Kili flinches a little but responds, "It does. Thanks Fee." 

Fili smiles fondly. Sometimes all that Kili really wants is comfort. He has always been a bit sensitive for a dwarf. Fili likes him that way.

They lie quietly together for a while, both lost in their own thoughts.

After a while, Fili speaks. "For a moment there, I thought maybe I had lost you Kee, or at least that you were more seriously hurt". His voice breaks with emotion. "And that man, crying over his brothers..."

"I know Fee", says Kili.

Fili draws his brother in closer along his side, moving until there is as little space between them as possible. The blankets are over but not between them. His hand is still spread across his brother’s ribs, over the rough fabric of his tunic.

It is not by any means the most perilous situation they've been in together, but for some reason, with the quest to retake Erebor stretching out before them, the possibility of death feels much closer and more real. If Fili had to undertake that journey on his own it would break him. He would be no fit heir to the throne, even if it were reclaimed in the end.

And he suspects that watching a man weep at the fates of his fallen brothers has struck a nerve deep in both of them. 

Eventually Fili leans down and places a gentle kiss on his brother’s temple. He lingers there, his breath moving Kili's hair. Admitting something he would never say to anyone but his brother, he whispers, "I am afraid of what will happen on this quest Kee. I am afraid of losing Thorin, and I am terrified of losing you. I'm not even sure it is worth it anymore."

"Of course it is Fee.Thorin needs his kingdom back and you deserve to be a king one day after him." Carefully, wincing with pain, Kili turns onto his good side so that he and Fili are face to face. "You will be a great king, fair and brave and wise."

Fili smiles sadly. "I hope so. I will only be able to do it with you at my side".

Kili raises his hand, slow from his injury, to Fili's face, laying his palm along his brother's cheek. "Of course I will be at your side Fee."

Angrily Fili says "But what if you are not? We were almost killed by just a few desperate men tonight! What if we are caught off-guard like that again? What if it is when we are facing much deadlier enemies than just bandits looking to rob us so that they can eat?" He stops to catch his breath before finishing more quietly, "What if I lose you?"

Kili leans his forehead against his brother’s and they stay like that for a moment, both overwhelmed with feeling. Eventually Kili draws in a slow breath and says, "There are no guarantees, brother. But our birthright is worth fighting for. And I am here right now. I will never leave you if I can help it."

And then Kili is looking into Fili's eyes as though trying to communicate something that cannot be spoken in only words. Fili is overcome by a mixture of love and longing and a loss that has not even happened yet but is somehow lodged, sharp as winter stars, in his throat. 

Before he can think, before he can stop himself, he leans forward and presses his lips to his brother’s mouth.

Quickly, Kili pulls back, his eyes widened with surprise. His breath is coming fast and he is searching Fili's face as though deciding something. Then what looks like resolution passes over his dark features and his brother moves forward and echoes Fili's action from just moments before. 

At first it is just the warmth and pressure of lips against lips. And then one of them, Fili does not know who, starts to move and there is the slip of tongue against lips, against teeth, against tongue. Their mouths are opening and noises are coming through them and Fili’s hand is behind Kili’s neck pulling them even closer. 

After a few minutes of this, which feel too short and also like forever, Fili's head is a hailstorm and his chest is filled with need. But he doesn't want to lead his younger brother into anything he does not also want with as much certainty. 

They separate to look at each other for a moment. "You alright with this Kee?" Fili asks. Kili nods, tenderness and desire plain on his expressive face. 

"You sure?" 

In response Kili just kisses him again, with more urgency than before.

Something tips between them now and Fili is rucking up Kili’s tunic, and running his hand up over his brother’s belly and chest. His head is buried in Kili’s neck, and he is nuzzling his brother’s jaw and the edges of beard with his forehead, with his nose and cheek, with his lips and tongue. Kili is supple and pliant and moaning quietly under his touch. His arm comes up and his fingers tangle in Fili's braids. 

They both know that this is probably wrong, but they are used to things being less simple than right and wrong, and have learned to trust the promptings of their body’s judgement, gut and nerve and blood and instinct. It is what has kept them alive, and able to continue on.

Right now that judgement is urging them against one another, straining and clinging brother to brother, one dark and the other golden, two halves of the same whole, one day to the other's night. 

Fili draws back for a moment, panting for air. He arches his hips against Kili's and can feel that they've both grown hard.

Looking at Kili, he wishes for a moment that instead of embarking on an impossible quest to kill a dragon, he and his brother were starting lives somewhere, tilling some soil, finding wives. He wants ales drunk over a kitchen table and jokes being told and laughter and song and feasting into the night. He has no need for gold. He wants small comforts and a good life, not a throne. If he could have is family nearby, just enough would be enough. 

His brother, he only wants his brother. 

Although he has never before imagined wanting him like this. 

They were born to no easy world or destinies however, and having been so often alone together in the face of so much, they have always been more than brothers. The words they would use to describe what they are to each other, if they had them, would be things more like shelter and safety and home. 

And now they must travel through lands thick with danger to gain back an ancestral home neither of them has ever seen, and risk losing each other.

Fili pushes Kili over onto his back and straddles him. He pulls the tunic over Kili's head and does the same to his own. After that the feeling of their skin pressing together is excruciating and perfect.

It is not long before laces are undone and trousers are kicked off, before the full length and hardness of their bodies is bared to one another, both lined with sinew and scars. Fili notices that blood has soaked through his brother’s bandages. He is trying to be gentle, to mind his brother’s injury. But he doesn’t want to be. There is friction between them now that is nearly unbearable, their cocks rubbing together as Fili pushes down and Kili pushes back up into him. 

Now that this thing has begun, Fili wants to lose himself in it. He is sick of the fight to come even before it has started, and this new feeling coursing through him could be a kind of relief if released, while it is a torment held back. Something has awakened in him and it wants to bite and scratch and hold his brothers body down and break on it like a wave on the shore. 

Instead he moves slowly down his brother’s body, caressing with open palms and kissing with an open mouth as he goes, setting Kili to writhing, his head thrown back and his eyes closed.

This will be their secret, thinks Fili, yet another bond between them. And if that bond should be seen by others as only one between brother-warriors, then so be it.

He knows this will never happen again; that they can never let it happen again. But for now, it seems like only a necessary thing and not something they are choosing. It feels as inevitable as the moon rising and the seasons turning.

When he has reached it, Fili hesitates for a moment and then takes his brother’s cock in his mouth. It is smooth and warm and hard. He knows nothing of this, has no idea what he is supposed to do next. But Kili is moaning his name - "Oh Fee" - and it spurs him on. 

He tries not to think too much about what he is doing. He tries to concentrate only on the hungry sounds Kili is making, the way Kili's body is moving, the way Kili's hands are clenched in his hair. His mouth begins to find a rhythm and before long his brother is gasping for air and his legs are tensing. Something is building in him and then Kili is throbbing in Fili's mouth and crying out and climaxing in hot gushes down his throat. 

Fili pulls away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and watches his brother sobbing with aftershocks, reaching for him with his eyes still closed. He lets Kili pull him back up where his cock lies swollen and heavy, aching against his brother’s thigh. 

Kili pulls him even higher, and, wetting his palm with spit, reaches down and arches his hand over Fili's cock, pressing it to his belly. 

Before he can even understand his brother’s intention his body does. He thrusts his hips forward, groaning with the tight slick pressure around his cock, held between his brother's flesh and the press of his hand. He does it again, slowly, and again. 

His voice low and lovely, Kili murmurs "yes Fee, yes" and then Fili is holding to his brother’s body with all his strength, one hand on his bicep and the other angled up to his opposite shoulder. He is riding Kili fiercely now, cock sliding in the heat between belly and palm. It makes the blood rush in his ears. 

A few more strokes and Fili's orgasm tears through him like a wildfire along his veins, setting every cell in his body to flame. Even his bones are burning and he spurts white over the dark hair that covers his brother's stomach and chest. 

Kili releases his handhold and wraps his arms around Fili’s shoulders, pulling them back against one another. He is still favoring his uninjured side, but most of his pain seems to have been forgotten and Fili is glad for it. 

A few more tender kisses are exchanged this way and then Fili rolls off and Kili curls against him, cuddling into the crook of his arm. They lie afterward, quietly in the dark. 

There are perhaps many things that need to be said, but also nothing at all. They will continue on as before, thinks Fili, caring for and protecting each other. This will only seal them even further together through the dangers that are to come. 

Suddenly the quest seems less daunting. Fili can almost imagine himself enjoying it, following their uncle, laughing with his brother, fighting at each other’s side. Always at each other’s side.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments very welcomed. Characters and settings owned by others and only borrowed. And wow, is it ever fun to borrow them and explore their emotional lives and then make them have sex with each other.


End file.
